


Peridot Redemption Arc Hell

by lookingdead



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 12:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4746842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingdead/pseuds/lookingdead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some short oneshots about Peridot adjusting to life on earth. Crust knows when I'll update.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Peridot Redemption Arc Hell

 

Amethyst thinks it’s really funny when she falls through the floor at 5:56 in the morning. That’s how you wake up. Loud laughing. Even louder screaming. Your eyes are bleary and you’re a little bit nauseous and you’re not sure you can even bring yourself to sit up. You just listen to them yell into your dreams.

“If you don’t shut your loud mouth and pull me out, I swear I’ll-”

“Oh man, chill, chill, chill. It’s funny. Geez.”

“It’s not funny-”

“Maybe not to you but-”

“It’s not-”

“God, I can’t believe this, you’re actually phased halfway through the floor. This is priceless. I wish I had a camera!”

“It’s not funny and if you don’t stop-”

“Sorry to, uh, break it to ya’, there, uh, Dotty, but its pretty much the funniest-”

“Either help me or leave, you impossibly obnoxious little-”

“AAAHahahahaahaa!!!!!”

The balance between your brain telling you to go back to sleep and the loudness of the noise coming from the kitchen shifts just enough to keep your eyelids open.

“What’s going on?” you call without moving. 

They don’t hear you over their own argument. Amethyst laughs louder which prompts Peridot to scream more. You decide to pull the covers off when you hear skin hit skin and a few growls and yelps.

You groan. The house has been so loud since this all started.

“Guys, what’s going on?” you call again, rubbing your eyes and walking down the stairs. The first thing you notice is that they are currently the same height, glaring into each other’s eyes. 

“Ohhh, Steven, sorry, I forgot you were sleeping,” Amethyst chokes out through the green hands currently gripping her throat, much to your alarm. You gasp.

“Hey, there, uh” choke ”Pearl and Garnet ain’t gonna be,” rasp ”all about what you’re doing here,” wheeze “Dippin’ Dots.”

Peridot makes some horrible screeching noise in her throat before very begrudgingly pulling her hands off of her.

“Stop calling me, weird, vaguely-related, variations of my name!” she says. 

The next thing you notice is that the reason they’re currently the same height is because Peridot’s legs are stuck halfway through the floor, ending just below the knee.

“What is going on here?!” you yell. 

They both give you a little more attention this time.

“Oh, boy, Steven. Okay, so, I was just coming down here to get some kinda snack and this, this treat, right here-”

“Would you just pull me out, you miserable basket-case!”

Amethyst rolls her eyes and sighs hard. “Hang on, quit your hollering. I was getting to that.”

She wraps her arms around the other’s waist.

“It didn’t seem like you were,” Peridot hisses.

She gives a good heaving tug, pulling her up and dragging the floor tiles and the concrete underneath and the dirt underneath that up with her. She lifts her with ease and sets her back down next to the fresh new hole in your kitchen floor.

“Amethyst-” you say, though you’re not sure what else would help this matter. You just, would rather not have a hole in your kitchen. It’s too early for that sort of thing.

Peridot’s legs are still covered in dirt and sealed in concrete. You’re not sure it helped at all.

“There, happy?”

“No.”

She starts trying to scrape the dirt off of her legs and break off the concrete and peal off the linoleum. Her hands flash bright green in the process, disappearing briefly, and when they come back they’re frozen in a fixed position. She growls loud.

“Oh, oh well. Anyway. So, Steven, I was just down here trying to get a snack when I notice Ol’ Pear dot com over here is growing out of the floor like oneathose lawn gnome thingies...”

“Is she okay?” you ask. 

“I dunno. Probably,” she says. “Anyway, my work is done here, so, I’ll catch you two later.” 

Then she leaves you for the door behind the warp. She casts off a few more loud cackles before she disappears into her room. Then you’re left alone. With Peridot.

You nervously watch as she tries to scrape dirt off her legs with hands that wont cooperate. You watch her fingers flash and twitch in and out of existence, moving in what you’re assuming is not the way she wants them to. They vibrate and glitch and choke themselves out. 

“Do, do you want some help?” you ask, tentatively. 

“No,” she says shortly. “I don’t want any more help.” 

You take a few steps back. Her lower right leg flashes bright green and she wobbles, falling to the floor onto her wrists as her hands bend backward under her weight. All the dirt and concrete falls to the floor in a dusty heap.

Her lower leg doesn’t come back at all. It’s just her thigh, moving with her hips as she tries to find balance.

You stand with uncertainty at the edge of the counter. She pushes herself back up and balances herself on her remaining leg.

“Are, are you sure?” you ask. 

She sways with her arms stretched out wide, her leg still caked in dirt. You realized she looks like a potted plant and you suppress a giggle. She also looks like she’s having a not so great time. She always looks like she’s having a not so great time, though. She’s a very unhappy potted plant.

She falls forward and braces herself on the countertop.

The sun is gray on the floor and you know that in proper light this mess is going to do anything but make Pearl happy. The dirt is illuminated by the flashing of Peridot’s arms like a quick snapping camera flash. She tips forward again, but they come back just in time to catch her.

“Peridot?”

“You know, you’re an extremely irritating little... invention,” she says without looking at you. She frequently doesn’t look at you, or the other gems, while talking. She’s more liable to look past you, or just next to you, or just not in your direction at all. 

You swallow, not sure if you should say anything else. But, even with that unsureness, you say “You look like, you need help.”

“Do I?” she challenges.

Your eyebrows screw up and your lips tighten.

“Well, yeah.” 

She hums in a sarcastic imitation of contemplation, swaying in her flowerpot until her free leg returns for her to balance with on the floor. “That’s odd because I what it seems like to me is that I just told you I don’t.”

She stamps back on her momentarily cooperating heel just in time for her other leg to fizzle out. The dirt and concrete and floor tiles all crumble to the ground and she sways backward into the fridge behind her. Her spine bends back and her shoulder blades press against the door, pushing her chin into her collarbone. She seems to get stuck there, looking remarkably uncomfortable in a dangerous purgatory between falling and standing back up. Her flickering hands paw the plastic, trying to find a way to push herself into a reasonable position.

You decide to assist her, even against her previous protests and the ones sure to come. You take a few steps forward and grip her upper arm, which is always cooperative and never dissolves without her say so.

“Don’t you understand language, brat?! I said-”

You pull her up so that she’s balancing on one leg and, though you only reach her chest, try to support her. She is very light, like folded paper or styrofoam.

She lifts her arms away from you, so you put your palm in the center of her back, which feels so small beneath such a large t-shirt. You wait for her to steady herself before letting go. Her legs flicker in and out and in and out.

“You should sit down,” you suggest. “It’ll make it a lot easier.” 

“I’ve been sitting down for six hours,” she spits. “There’s only so much sitting in one place I can deal with.” 

You slowly guide her, with her legs hell-bent on not letting her walk, back to the couch. She wobbles and takes steps in between the glitches. You watch her feet and notice that they frequently come back Wrong. They’ll appear with toes facing outward, with backwards arches, with no toes at all, with a mess of poorly placed green bone and blue muscle and holographic skin. They’re stubborn and shy and just won’t stay put.

You get her back to the couch where she slouches into the pillows. Her brow is heavy over her eyes and her lips are tight. Her twitching, glowing, arms lay limp beside her, her legs set wide and taking up space. She’s barely sitting on the couch, more draped on the edge.

“I’m sorry the gems won’t give you your equipment back,” you say. 

Her lip curls and she looks out the window.

“They said they were looking into making me new ones that didn’t contain weapons,” she says. “But that’s bound to be fruitless. They don’t have the know-how. Or even the brains to house the know-how. Stupid, old, gems. Probably can’t even access the universal data hub... ” 

You frown, something flaring up inside your chest. “Hey, I know you don’t like being here and everything, and that, it’s sort of not fair that disarming you also means your arms and legs aren’t going to work for a while until we can find another solution, but...” You swallow. “The gems are my family, and they don’t deserve to be called stupid.”

She sighs and rolls back her head until she’s staring at the ceiling.

“And just because you don’t understand something doesn’t make you stupid,” you continue. “Sometimes stuff is just tough to understand. And that’s okay! The gems and me don’t totally understand you or your technology, and that’s okay, because, we can learn about it. And, you don’t totally understand me and the gems and Earth, and that’s okay too.”

“I understand that it’s all idiotic and irritating,” she says quickly. 

You clench your fists and wet your lips. “Well, maybe you just think that because you don’t understand it. Like I said, it’s okay if you don’t understand-”

“I don’t need to be lectured,” she hisses. “Especially not by some, thing that stole someone else’s gem to use up like a battery.” 

You shut your mouth. You take a deep breath. You swallow six or eight loud, loud, incoherent emotions.

Outside your head, there’s only silence. The sun is flooding the floor, now, seeping into cracks and pooling delicately on the furniture.

“I want us to stop being enemies, and for the gems to be able to trust you, so we can all be happy together.” 

There’s nothing from her.

“And... I’m not a thing,” you say. “I’m, I’m Steven.” 

She just keeps staring at the ceiling. Her arms and legs flicker palely in the rising sun.


End file.
